Next Summer
by greyslostwho
Summary: Caskett. Set a year after the events of A Deadly Game. My own little finale fix, hopefully in a slightly original way. NOW COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

**Next Summer**

_Castle fic, set a year after the events of A Deadly Game, in which I attempt to right a few wrongs. It's been in progress for a while, so it doesn't fit with what we now know to be canon, but I'm hoping you'll enjoy it still._

_Reviews always much appreciated!_

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* * *

_

"This was a bad idea, Lanie…" she sighs, staring out of the window as the beach houses come into view, with their high security gatehouses and price tags she could only dream of. Lanie makes a strange noise that sounds something like a laugh in her throat, and turns to her friend.

"It didn't take all that much to persuade you…"

Beckett runs a hand nervously through her hair. "You know this is all some big, elaborate gesture of… I don't know… _something_, right?"

Lanie laughs out loud this time. "It's all for you, girl, and I think you know that…"

Beckett frowns as the car draws into the street and she catches the first glimpse of the houses – she can't help but catch her breath. They're beautiful, both of them, and she can see the sea in the gap between them, metres away, past long back gardens and a fairly sizeable stretch of white sand.

"Beginning to regret not taking this opportunity last summer?" Lanie raises an eyebrow, but the look her friend shoots her tells her they're not ready to joke about any of that, not yet. Beckett sighs lightly as she stares in wide eyed awe at the Hamptons houses, framed in bright sunshine, set slightly away from the others on the wide strip. Lanie doesn't say anything else, but the words hung unsaid in the air, and they both know what Beckett's thinking about – what if she hadn't been with Demming, what if she hadn't turned him down the first time, what if she'd spent the summer here, with him?

_What then? _She's almost afraid of daring to ask herself, so she simply stares through the silence as the car – sent for her and Lanie by Castle – draws up right outside.

Ridiculously, her heart does something strange when she sees them all. Ryan and Jenny, Montgomery and his family, Esposito, Martha, Alexis and _Castle. _Apparently their driver took the long route, and they're all standing on the side of the strip, varying severities of suitcases stacked beside them. Suddenly, she has no desire to get out of the car.

"This was definitely a bad idea, Lanie…"

She's known that, really, since Castle suggested it. Surprisingly, their friendship has survived last summer and everything that happened (though it was everything that didn't happen that was really the problem) but things have changed. There's a big empty space between them now, where before he wouldn't have hesitated to lean right forward into it, almost rudely, make her as uncomfortable as possible – part of her wishes he still would, the other part chastises the more liberal Kate, telling her it's for the best. There's the elephant in the room, the fact that he spent the summer at the Hamptons with Gina and he thinks she spent the summer with Demming, not breaking up with him until he was almost home. It's an assumption he seems to have made, and she's never had the heart to correct him.

She tells herself it's because it would only lead to awkward conversations about fleeting moments that they both missed, that everything's passed now, they should both move on.

She tells herself that apart from a few dates, most of them orchestrated by Lanie, the reason she hasn't _seen anyone _since Demming is because of her job, she's moved on… just hasn't had the chance to show it yet.

Most days, Kate Beckett is fully aware that everything she's telling herself is absolute crap. But life goes on, Castle goes on, and they both pretend nothing's changed, that they don't feel the sudden solid space between them, not unlike the repulsion of two like poles of a magnet.

That's wrong, she thinks, because they're not alike at all, her and Castle, and she's always seen that as the problem.

But she had no way of arguing when after a difficult case, with the summer approaching, Castle swooped into the Precinct and announced that the adjacent house to his at the Hamptons was free for a weekend and he was offering an all-expenses-paid weekend of cocktails, sand and sunshine.

For the whole lot of them.

Even now, Beckett has no idea how he managed to persuade all of them to do it. No idea how they'd all managed to get the leave from work – she's sure there's someone back at the Precinct wondering slightly bewilderedly where the homicide department have disappeared to – and she knows they wouldn't have done it for anyone other than Castle.

So here she is, Lanie half-dragging her out of the car, in front of two of the most beautiful houses she's ever seen, and she's wondering how she and Castle are going to keep pretending to have suffered acute amnesia with regards to last summer, now they're here.

Now everything she just missed out on is only a hair's breadth away.

"There are, uh, five bedrooms next door… and I've got one spare in my place…" Castle is saying, and before it happens, Beckett knows she's about to be betrayed. Lanie, Ryan and Esposito shift almost inconceivably in the direction of the rented house, and Lanie seems to be refusing the meet her gaze. Montgomery gives her an almost imperceptible shrug, and in that moment she realises she may be able to put to use the large number of ways to kill a person she's managed to compile over her time at the NYPD.

"You can take the spare room with us, Kate…" Alexis says, "It's got a bathroom with a whirlpool bath and everything…"

Beckett will take a metre square outhouse if she doesn't have to be constantly in a twenty metre radius of Castle, but she can't refuse his daughter anything, and with one last, murderous glance at Lanie – what would it take though, really? All her friend has to say was something along the lines of 'Kate and I will share' and the awkward situation would evaporate as quickly as it has appeared – she forces the smile onto her face, and starts to drag her weekend bag in the direction of Castle's Hamptons house.

Only she's a year too late, and under altogether different circumstances. _This is practically kidnap; _she muses as Castle smoothly slides in and takes her bag from her to carry up the stairs, not leaving her the opportunity to protest. He runs all three of their bag up the stairs, impressively not buckling even under the weight of Martha's, a giddy smile on his face she wishes didn't bring a slight curve to her own mouth.

She takes a deep breath, stepping through the doors, hoping nothing too beautiful will assault her right now, because she's not sure she's ready for it.

As seems to have become the pattern, her prayers are not answered. The high-ceilinged, bright, open hall way leaves her mouth gaping open, and he's standing slightly too close to her, smiling widely, setting her bag down beside her.

"It's beautiful, Castle." She whispers, and without taking his eyes off her face, he grunts his agreement, like the biggest cliché in history, the scene he'd never be able to bring himself to write.

Alexis is too busy dragging her bag up the stairs to notice anything is amiss, but Martha stands slightly behind them, suddenly overwhelmed by the expression on her son's face – she's not sure she's ever seen it before.

* * *

Castle finds himself pacing up and down the corridor four times before knocking on Beckett's door.

"Come in, Alexis." He hears, and he has to tear his hand away from the doorknob before he bursts inside.

"It's Castle."

There's a heavy, confused silence. Even in a year, they haven't quite worked out all the rules yet. They certainly haven't figured this one out. He hears her rummaging with something.

"Come in."

He opens the door slowly, his heart thumping in his chest like a horny teenager, and he has to grit his teeth to steel himself. As it is, he has shown remarkable foresight. Beckett is standing in front of the wardrobe dressed in nothing but a modest black bikini with a light kaftan over the top, made of a pale blue sheer material with absolutely no opacity whatsoever. His mouth runs dry, instantly.

She turns to him, her eyebrows slightly raised, a touch of a smile on her lips, and for a moment it's as if nothing has changed at all, the past year hasn't happened.

"You wanted something?" she says in that dead tone he's nowhere near to getting used to, and he realises everything has happened, everything's been all too real. He forces the easy smile anyway.

"Just to let you know that there's going to be a small party on the beach tonight… I'm just headed next door to let them know… I… Alexis would love it if you'd join us…"

She gives a tight smile, and it's more than nothing, and his heart warms.

"Sure." She manages, keeping her lips in tight formation, wondering how much of her it would really take to let loose, just for a second, as if nothing had changed.

"Wear something-" he starts, and then trails off, his eyes shamelessly roaming over her, his expression slightly bemused. "Never mind. You always look beautiful."

A year ago, she would have threatened to shoot him, or made some other sarcastic comment. She would have thought it one of his bad come-ons; she would have rolled her eyes and thought nothing of it. But as Castle turns and leaves the room without another word to her, she feels a wordless response stick in her throat, her chest tighten and her eyes sting. There's something so sincere in his voice she finds her heart beating faster and her mouth turn dry.

He sounds like he means it.

* * *

"How come you never come over anymore?" Alexis asks, lightly, casually, but the question makes Beckett's heart thump and a lump rise in her throat. She turns on her side on the sun bed beside Castle's pool and props herself up on her elbow. She owes his daughter honesty, if nothing else, but she can't bring herself to reveal anything, she's become so used to concealing it all.

"Oh, y'know, work's been busy…"

Alexis raises her eyebrows the same way her father does when he doesn't believe a word of the crap that's spilling out of her mouth.

"I thought work was always busy… but you used to have dinner with us and stuff… and do paperwork with Dad… but this year…" she trails off, finishing rubbing in her sun lotion and then passing the bottle to Beckett. "Can you do my back?"

The detective nods, and Alexis turns, facing away from her, holding long red hair out of the way of her pale skin.

"It's complicated, Alexis…" Beckett attempts, and the girl spins round, giving her a disdainful look.

"I'm not four years old, Kate." She deadpans, "You can't brush me off like that. What happened last summer?"

Beckett blanches, her heart thudding. "Look, Alexis…"

"It just seems like something changed between you and Dad by the time I got back from Princeton… he wasn't working with you as much anymore and everything seemed… different…"

She gives a tight smile, takes a deep breath.

"I thought he was bringing you here, anyway…. He seemed so excited about it…"

That almost finishes her off. She rubs the remainder of the lotion into Alexis' back, and the youngest Castle turns round, expectant eyes on Kate.

"He asked me…" she breathes, not able to speak the words any louder, "He asked me, and I said no… and then… everything seemed to fall into place, and I was with Demming, and I didn't want to be with Demming anymore…"

Alexis' eyes widen slightly, but she doesn't interrupt the story Beckett's struggled to tell anyone, for a whole year.

"I broke up with Demming, and I was about to tell your ridiculous, incorrigible father that I would come with him after all… and his ex wife saunters into the Precinct, and he announces they're both going together, for the whole summer…"

At this, Alexis' jaw drops. "He took **Gina**?" she hisses. Beckett nods.

"I'm gonna kill him." Richard Castle's daughter fumes, twisting her fingers through her hair, infuriated. "He is such an **idiot **sometimes…"

At least that makes Beckett laugh, and then a small smile touches Alexis' lips, and silence falls.

"I'm so sorry he did that." The girl says, a sympathetic smile on her face. "Gina's a… I didn't think any of us liked Gina…"

"To be fair to him, Lex, he didn't know I'd broken up with Demming… that's my fault… I, uh… he still thinks we didn't break up until the end of summer."

Castle's daughter's expression is unreadable, and Beckett looks down at her feet, suddenly slightly ashamed. "Please don't tell him any of this." She breathes, unable to fathom a confrontation with Castle about all of this, after the months of building walls and pushing unwanted emotions into boxes.

Alexis sighs. "How can two people's timing be quite that bad?" she muses, but gives Beckett a small smile all the same. "I won't say anything, I swear… but maybe… maybe you should…"

The thought of that makes all of her insides clench at once, but she gives the girl a small nod. "I just need some time." She says in a small voice, and instantly loathes how she sounds, so vulnerable and weak.

Alexis nods slowly, her head cocked on one side in slight bewilderment.

* * *

_Almost all of the next chapters have been written, so they should be up pretty soon!_


	2. Chapter 2

**Next Summer**

_Castle fic, set a year after the events of A Deadly Game, in which I attempt to right a few wrongs. It's been in progress for a while, so it doesn't fit with what we now know to be canon, but I'm hoping you'll enjoy it still._

_Reviews always much appreciated!_

Castle drinks the dregs of his first cocktail, staring absent-mindedly out as the sun sets behind the houses, sending a pale orange glow over the beach. Alexis is standing with her toes in the water, talking to a group of teenagers, boys and girls, around her own age. He isn't sure where Martha's gotten to, but he assumes she's entertaining everyone with highly engaging stories about her brief period in the spotlight. Esposito is talking to Montgomery's wife, Ryan and Jenny are a few metres away from everyone else, heads close together, hands held. Castle watches them for a moment, and finds an unwelcome lump rising in his throat, and a sudden realisation – he can't remember the last time he was like that with anyone.

As if on cue, cliché as it seems, he turns, and Beckett and Lanie are walking down the steps from his patio onto the sand. For a moment he almost chokes as his eyes take on a life of their own and run, taunting, over every inch of her. She's saying something to Lanie, not looking in his direction, and she's curled her hair and half of it is pinned up on her head, and the dress she's wearing is black and strapless and cut just above her knees… her legs seem to descend endlessly into violently crimson stilettos.

"She's going to notice you staring in a minute." Says a voice just behind him, startling him into attempting to look slightly less astonished. _So that's where Martha had got to. _

"I wasn't-" he starts, turning to his mother, but she simply laughs.

"You can't fool me, kiddo." There's a smile somewhere between interfering and sinister on her face, and he's suddenly worried about what a few cocktails might make her say to Beckett. "But she'll be going back to the city tomorrow night if you don't do something about it…"

Before he can argue, she's spotted an old friend, or a new acquaintance, or maybe just the barman, and has sauntered off.

When he turns back, Beckett and Lanie are only a few metres away, and no matter how he tries to keep himself in check, he can't help his mouth hanging open slightly at the sight of her. Subsequently, Lanie's eyebrows raise and she stops in front of him, one hand resting on her hip.

"It's not like you haven't seen her in a dress before, Castle."

Beckett's not looking at him, but staring out at the sea pointedly, arms wrapped around herself like she's slightly uncomfortable with the whole situation, the dress, the fuck-me shoes – he suspects Lanie dressed her.

"It's the shoes." He counters, and the corners of the medical examiner's mouth turn up a little. Beckett turns to look at him, and his eyes lock with hers, if only for a second.

"You look…" he starts, but Beckett says, "Thank you," before he can find a suitable adjective. He might be imagining things, but he thinks it's possible that her tone's not quite as cold and clipped as it had been earlier. Lanie's eyebrows raises further, but she says nothing, watching the two of them staring at one another.

"Just put all your drinks on my tab." He smiles, "And if you have any song requests, the DJ's an old friend…"

"This is really something, Castle." Beckett gives him _that smile _again, the one that reiterates a thousand boundaries between them; that tells him in fewer words not to ruin anything by saying anything stupid, that of course they can just be friend, be civil, pretend last summer never happened.

"Enjoy yourselves, ladies." He says, before he turns away, unable to face her like that. He knows it's almost cowardly, walking away, finding the youngest, perkiest blonde who'd probably ask him to sign her chest in any other situation, drinking and socialising like the man he can't remember when he stopped being – _when you met Beckett, _his internal monologue tells him, but he's not in the mood to listen – but he can't face the unsaid things, the regrets and the what ifs that hang in the air when she gives him that smile.

* * *

She knocks back the dregs of another Piña Colada, staring for a moment down at her hands through the half light, wondering, not for the first time, what the hell she's doing here, why the hell she agreed to this ridiculous weekend in the first place. Her usually rational brain-voice (although severely inhibited with the alcohol) is saying something about trying to patch things up with Castle, her morbid curiosity as to what she lost out on, a hope somewhere in the deepest confines of her thoughts that something might change between them this weekend. But that's not it, and she shouldn't have been so blind to have not seen it. Castle's out there, sand between his toes, dancing with some blonde girl who looks like she's never done a day's work in her life, and she's nursing multiple cocktails at the makeshift bar like some sort of jilted housewife.

She peers, slightly sadistically, into the crowd of dancing people, trying to spot Castle amongst the foray. The nausea rises even further in her throat when she realises he's not there – she's not up for sleeping in that house, knowing he's not alone in the next room, not at all – and she turns to the barman to order another drink. Something a little more no-nonsense this time, she decides, like a Scotch.

As she turns, she sees him standing beside her, eyes fixed on her face, that one variation on a smile he sometimes has when he looks at her – the one expression on his face she can't quite read. A smile she hasn't seen many times this year.

"Fancy a dance, Detective Beckett?" he says, holding out a hand.

Everything stops spinning and just downright stops.

"What happened to the twelve year old?" Apparently she's a mean drunk.

He only laughs, edging a little close to her; that hand is still stretched out to her. "I got bored." He says in that infuriating, off-hand manner, and she slides off her barstool. The voice in her head is practically screaming at her, she's far too drunk, she's teetering on the edge of something that's changed her this past year, but Castle's eyes are inviting, and when she looks at him, everything around her seems to spin slightly less.

She takes his hand, and isn't too drunk not to notice his sharp intake of breath.

He pulls her towards the throng of moving bodies, drawing her straight to him. She stumbles a little, regretting the stilettos Lanie pretty forcibly made her wear, and pulls him to the side for a second whilst she slips them off, leaves them lying on the sand. He holds gently under her upper arm to steady her as she bends down, and she feels her whole body grow warm at the feel of his long fingers. Were she not so drunk, she'd be mentally pulling herself together right now, but the alcohol fuzzes everything, and she slips her hand back into his, turning away from the shoes, heading back into the dancing.

Almost the moment they fall into rhythm, the song changes, slows, and Castle takes the opportunity to pull her flush against him. Without her shoes, there's more than a slight difference in their heights, and her face is level with his neck. She tilts it back to look at him quizzically, the fact that he'd introduced the party's DJ as his personal friend earlier in the evening and that this was the first slow song that had played not escaping her. He simply gives her that enigmatic smile and she feels his fingers splay on the bare skin of her back.

For a moment, her Detective Beckett inner monologue quietens and a voice that sounds slightly like her mother's tells her that Richard Castle's nothing she can't handle, and this is where she actually wants to be right now.

Castle wonders if Beckett can hear his heartbeat as she loops her arms around his neck, closing any small gap that remained between them. She's not quite looking at him, her eyelids hooded and low, and he's not sure whether it's nervousness, embarrassment or the alcohol, and her lips are parted slightly, as if on the precursor for her to whisper something to him. She's smaller than she looks, it's all too easy for his arms to encase her, and without her shoes she's exactly the right height to rest her head on his shoulder, and that's what she does, sliding one of her hands from its place behind his head to lace his fingers through hers. He feels her breathing lightly on his skin, and it makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up on end. He tightens his hold on her waist almost imperceptibly and lets his eyes close.

"I've missed you." He dares to whisper, bracing himself for her to step away. She doesn't, however her own eyelids flicker closed and her mouth turns down into something not unlike a slight grimace.

"Can you just… not speak?" she breathes back, and he's got a thousand counter-arguments and a thousand things to say, but he doesn't, just for now, he rests his head gently against hers and sways in the moonlight, praying that a reason to let go of her doesn't come along too soon.

* * *

"Having fun, Detective Beckett?" Castle slurs slightly, holding her by the arm to stop her from tumbling in the sand. Beckett laughs slightly, leaning on him.

"Absolutely." She breathes, too close to his face, and despite the numerous Tequila Sunrises and the odd Long Island Iced Tea, Castle is suddenly painfully aware of how loud his heartbeat is, how the **smell **of her sets his pulse racing, his breathing shallow.

He turns his head away slightly to stare out over the beach – she's far too intoxicating to be healthy – but keeps a firm hold of her wrist.

"You should have come last year when you were offered." He dares, wishing the words back the moment they are out of his mouth. Beckett's shaking her head, staring with great intent at her feet.

"We shouldn't talk about last summer." She says breathily, deliberately not looking him in the eye. "Because I've had a lot to drink, and I might end up telling you… telling you the truth…"

Alcohol or no alcohol, he's intrigued now. She's wrapped both her hands around his upper arm to steady herself, and her nails are digging in, her balance faltering. She looks at him with wide eyes and a smile with almost the air of a guilty child.

"The truth?" he turns his face to her, and two inches and there'd be no gap at all between them, two inches and he'd break the stalemate three years had solidified between them. She bites her lip, as she's prone to do when God's feeling particular animosity towards Richard Castle, those big eyes solemn and seductive all at once.

She's going to be the death of him.

"If we start talking about last summer I'll start telling about you and me and how I didn't really break up with Demming in August like you thought, but before you left, and how I was going to come with you, but Gina showed up, because I'm a really mouthy drunk and-" she claps her hand to her mouth in an almost comical fashion as she realises her inner monologue is reaching Castle's ears.

For a moment he stares at her, and it takes him that long to realise they're stopped, his bare feet sinking in the sand, the incorrigible, extraordinary Kate Beckett on his arm, as drunk as anything, so close to his face he can practically taste the Piña Colada on her tongue. She's shaking her head, and he's not sure whether at him or herself, he's so bewildered.

He's still trying to figure out what she's been talking about when she kisses him.

The alcohol does neither of them any favours, their teeth clash and their noses bump, but she tastes like he could never have imagined and it's **Beckett **he's kissing, so anything goes. She's practically using him to prop herself up by the time she pulls away from his mouth, smiling coyly and chewing on her lips, swaying slightly.

There's a roaring in his ears he knows is not just the waves.

"You didn't look like you were getting the message." She whispers, kissing the side of his mouth with such an uncharacteristic giggle he's forced to remember the reality of the situation – she's far drunker than he is, and they're barefoot on a beach.

"Kate…"

"Shhh…" is her only response, curling her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck, and leaning up to kiss him. Despite the alcohol, they seem to have each other's number now, and her mouth moves smoothly against his, her tongue snaking out and grazing his lips gently before darting back out of reach. He finds, good intentions and gentlemanly principles aside, his arms are wrapped so strongly around her waist he lifts her off her feet slightly, but he's not quite sober enough for that, and their shared enthusiasm sends them both tumbling into the sand.

It's lucky no one else is around as Beckett lands firmly on top of Castle, uncharacteristic giggles escaping her throat. Unable to think straight for just a second, he lays his head back in the sand, a low chuckle emanating through him, and therefore through them both. He spreads a palm on the bare skin of her back, just above the line of her dress, making sure she doesn't roll off him. When he opens his eyes, allowing reality to crash over him, her face is level with his, and she's biting her lip in the way that's been undoing him ever since they first met, and her eyes are dark, pupils dilated, and he's not sure whether it's the half light or something closer to desire.

"I think I love you…" she slurs, and he swears his heart stops beating for a second, but he knows how drunk she is, and how difficult the past year has been, so he decides to go with it, combing a hand back into her hair and bringing his lips to hers again. She tastes better than he could ever have imagined, and he wonders briefly if he could ever get used to this – before one of her hands finds its way to the buttons of his shirt and other thoughts entirely take over his mind.

Loathe as he is to do it, Castle breaks away from Beckett's lips, slowly gathering her hands and pulling them away from him, and shifting his weight under her, moving to stand.

"What's wrong?" she manages, swaying and nearly falling as she stands back on two shaky legs and leans heavily on his arm, her smile turning down. For a moment she looks somewhere between vulnerable and childlike as she pouts up at him, but when he has no response for her, she gets a glint that's distantly familiar in her eye.

"If you're rejecting me after all that, Castle, I'll have to shoot you."

He laughs lightly, kissing the frown off her face. "I think Rick will be ok, now…" he murmurs, wrapping his arms around her and letting her bury her head in his shoulder for a moment. "But I'm not letting this get out of hand, not tonight… you're completely trolleyed, Kate, and-"

She looks up at him, giving him a small scowl. "I'm perfectly in… in control of my actions, I'll have you know…"

He chuckles, tucking her arm around his and turning towards the Hamptons house. "If you say so." And then softer, "I'm not screwing this up, not again."

She seems to consider that for a more as he half carries her up the steps, and when he next looks back at her face, there's a slightly vacant smile plastered all across it.

He manages to get her up the stairs without making too much noise, but she seems to take on a mind of her own on the landing again, and turns to him, bracing herself against his chest with open palms, kissing him messily with her eyes drifting closed.

Castle ponders briefly the possibility that he might hold out better under torture than with Kate Beckett relentlessly attempting to get into his pants, but he guides her gently to the bed all the same, pulling back the covers and patting the mattress for her to sit down. She complies, but not without attempting to pull him down with her. He reaches up wordlessly and slides the pins out of her hair, setting them down on the bedside cabinet without taking his eyes off of her face. She tries to conceal a wide yawn, making him smile, and then lean forward and kiss her on the forehead. She's as light as Alexis as he tucks her under the covers, watching her try to hide how sleepy she is. He sits on the side of the bed for a moment, tucking a curl behind her ear.

"We'll talk about all this in the morning… you get some sleep."

A small smile creeps onto Beckett's face as he mentions the word sleep, but she catches his hand and pulls him back as he gets up to leave.

"Stay with me."

"Kate-"

She shakes her head, her eyes already drifting closed. "Just to sleep. Please."

Recognising it as maybe the only opportunity he will ever get to see Kate Beckett quite like this, Castle smiles and replaces his jeans with sweatpants and tosses his shirt in the laundry basket before climbing under the covers behind her. He thinks she maybe have already drifted off, but as he tucks an arm loosely around her waist she wriggles into him slightly, her eyes closed and her words slurred, but what she says couldn't be any clearer.

"I missed you too."

_I'm thrilled with the response so far, you got yourselves an early post!_


	3. Chapter 3

**Next Summer**

_Castle fic, set a year after the events of A Deadly Game, in which I attempt to right a few wrongs. It's been in progress for a while, so it doesn't fit with what we now know to be canon, but I'm hoping you'll enjoy it still._

_Reviews always much appreciated!_

Kate Beckett's first thought that morning that everything changes is for neither her pounding hangover nor the slightly bizarre furry taste in her mouth, but for the man sleeping beside her, laid almost comically on his stomach with his face half buried in the pillow, eyes closed, mouth slightly open. She finds, even before she's had time to think about it, a smile has formed on her mouth, and she traces his jaw-line with her index finger so slightly she supposes he won't even feel it. Gently disentangling herself from his limbs, she climbs off the bed, tearing her eyes away from him as she grabs some clean clothes and her towels and closes her bathroom door behind her.

She catches a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror and is confused for more than a moment. Surely there should be something to see there, some outward difference, something to mark the fact that with a few cocktails in her and a boldness she didn't know she had when it came to Richard Castle, last night she had turned her entire world on its head.

Instead, she looks as she has looked every other day, her hair always growing slightly longer, her eyes wide and tired, Detective Kate Beckett. She mentally chastises herself for expecting something different as she turns the water on in the shower and sheds her clothes, stepping under the scalding water, hoping it will give her some sort of wake up call.

What she doesn't consider is that while she can't see the subtle differences in her face, he would have been able to. Castle would have read the slight release of a jaw that had been tense, set, this past year, as well as she read her suspects. He would have spotted the slight lightening of her eyes, without the heavy disappointment in them, without something weighing her down. Castle would have read the faintly different woman in the mirror as just Kate, not her detective counterpart.

She can't help, however, the smile on her face as she lathers her hair with shampoo, and although her memories of the night before are patchy, although she's sure she said more in her alcohol-induced honesty than she can remember, and she's sure she'll cringe later when she thinks of it; she can't help the slightly giddy laugh that rises in her throat, and how her heart warms as she remembers the look on his face as she lay in the sand with him, the way he kissed her forehead as he lay her to bed, the feeling of drifting off with his arms around her.

* * *

He knows before he opens his eyes that the other side of the bed will be empty. Groaning slightly, he eases himself out of the guest room bed, hearing the shower roaring in the bathroom and tiptoes across the hallway into his own room, the pristinely made bed somehow taunting him. As he turns on the shower in his own bathroom there's a sinking feeling in his stomach – last night she was tantalising, beautiful, open and honest, and more than anything he's afraid that she'll put it down to being drunk, that she'll brush it off somehow, that everything will be returned to its awkward order.

The hot water runs over his skin and he feels his whole body tense as her remembers her nails raking across his chest, lips searing across his jaw line, down his neck, and remembers her admission – she'd broken up with Demming _before _he left for the Hamptons with Gina. Their timing had fallen short; they'd missed the opportunity that might have delivered them to last night a year earlier. They'd danced around one another unnecessarily for a year, he'd lost his best friend, he'd screwed up everything.

He sighs as he wraps a towel around himself and steps out of the bathroom, expecting the un-slept-in bed to be staring him blindly in the face.

What he sees, however, is somewhat hotter.

Beckett is laid on her stomach, a thin white sheet obviously the only thing covering her naked form, hair tousled and wet from the shower, her nose buried in his hardback first edition of Storm Fall.

For a moment he stands there, swallowing, his body reacting to the image in front of him, the woman he hasn't been able to get out of his head for three years, naked in his bed, reading his book, when the bathroom door slams shut in a breeze and she's alerted to his presence.

She closes the book slowly and turns, sitting up, lifting the sheet with her and tucking it under her arms, eyes finding his. She's biting her lip, slightly more nervous, more inhibited, than the night before, but the moment he finds the ability to think coherent thoughts again he realises her being there, wrapped in his bed-sheet, is an invitation in itself. He takes a few steps, clearing the floor space between the door and the bed, and climbs onto it in front of her, taking a moment to stare at her with something not unlike awe in his eyes before taking her by the shoulders and kissing her firmly.

There's no awkwardness, no clumsiness, not this time. Her mouth moves against his with a fluidity that would suggest they'd been doing this for longer than 12 hours, and she threads her hands into his hair and pulls him down towards her, Castle losing his towel in the process and the sheet falling loosely at Beckett's waist, modesty no longer a consideration.

He pulls away from her, breathless, pushing stray hairs out of her face. "Should we talk?" he half-pants, and she smiles, tracing a finger so lightly over his lips.

"Not now, Castle." She whispers as she strains up to meet his mouth again, only to be cut off as he starts to trail his mouth down her neck, sliding the sheet from between them, catching his breath suddenly at the feeling of their hot skin melding together. "We've wasted too much time…"

For a moment he's not sure who this woman is, this woman in his bed, because unless he's died and gone to heaven he's damn sure she can't be Kate Beckett, but the little moan she gives as his hand slides over the soft skin of her stomach is a little bit Nikki Heat, but she's more delicious, more beautiful than he could have imagined, and that's what decides it. No one else could be this good.

They move together with a grace that tells them this was too long in the making, and there's something about the way they fit together that quells both their slight fears, that encourages them that this was the right choice, this was the leap of faith they've been waiting to take.

* * *

Afterwards, she curls into his side, one of her legs landing between his, breathing heavily and resting her chin on his chest, smiling up at him. He's got a twinkle in his eye she hasn't seen much this past year, one that warns her that what he's about to say, she won't necessarily like.

"So, Detective, about what you said last night…"

She groans, the slight thumping in her head reminding her of the amount of alcohol consumed, and Castle's expression concerning her even more.

"I can't say I remember a lot… but I'm guessing I was embarrassing…"

He laughs, she feels the rumble of his chest, she decides she likes this proximity. "No, you were perfectly charming…" One of his hands finds its way to the small of her back, tracing patterns on her skin. She smiles. "You were… maybe a little more open that you would have been sober…"

She raises her eyebrows, looks between the two of them. "You don't say, Castl-Rick…"

He can't hide his grin at the sound of his first name; she can't hide the slight blush in her cheeks.

"That wasn't quite what I was talking about…" he laughs, and she marvels at his ability to irk her still, and realises that that's half the attraction, that's half the reason she loves him.

She goes cold, suddenly remembering something else that happened the previous night – something she said.

"Please don't make this as awkward as you possibly can, for once in your life…" she whispers, and the sincerity and vulnerability in her voice halts his laughter, stops every witty comment on his lips. He gives her a small smile.

"Pretty forthcoming when you're drunk, huh?"

She tries a laugh – it falls flat, he pulls her closer to him, until their lips are millimetres from one another.

"I could pretend you never said it, if that's what you wanted." He says, and the honesty in his voice tells her he would, in a heartbeat, but the pain in his eyes is begging her not to deny it, not to take them two steps back when they've taken one step forward.

"It's all right." She whispers, and before she can elaborate his face literally lights up and he presses his lips quick against hers, warm and full of promise. "Just don't expect me to get brave enough to say it again for a while…"

He pushes a strand of hair out of her face and smiles up at her, tracing her lips with his thumb.

"I love you too, Kate." He breathes as he pulls her down. For a while she melts into him, not worrying about the commitment she's making, the steps she's taking at a sprint.

When they finally surface and go downstairs, there's a note from Alexis saying she's gone to the beach with friends for the day and a hasty scribble tacked on the end about not being sure where Martha went, but she's pretty sure she left the party with someone very rich-looking last night. Castle laughs and tucks Beckett into his side for a moment, murmuring something about having the house to themselves, but Beckett doesn't quite catch it – the feeling of his breath on her neck distracts her.

They make coffee and French toast and sit too close at the breakfast bar, Beckett's bare feet resting on one of Castle's shins, turned slightly to face him, a smile creeping onto her face every time he catches her eye.

Surprisingly, they don't feel much need to talk. They're contented to sit in silence, the unspoken words that had built up and hung between them all dissolving with each kiss, every time their eyes meet. She lays on the swing-seat with her head on Castle's lap and her nose in his latest Nikki Heat manuscript – "You can't really deny me an advanced reading now, Rick…" – and he runs his fingers absent-mindedly through her hair and occasionally reads a passage over her shoulder and laughs at himself, or leans down and changes something with a pencil.

After the silence seems to stretch between them, however comfortably, he can't seem to hold it in any longer.

"Will you stay with me?" he blurts, and he feels every muscle in Beckett's body tense as she freezes.

She seems to gather herself and then looks up at him, raising an eyebrow. "Castle, please tell me you're not asking me to marry you…"

He laughs, but it's not entirely funny, and they both realise, and stare at one another for a moment.

"For the summer." He says, and she smiles, relief and the realisation that she's looking at the one man she's ever considered a forever with blooming inside her.

"Sure."

"What?"

"I'll stay."

His eyes widen, he sits up a little straighter, cocking his head to one side as if trying to figure out if she's joking or not. "You're serious?"

She laughs, setting the manuscript aside and sitting up, sliding her arms to circle his neck and leaning her face close to his. "I'm serious, Castle. I'll stay with you."

* * *

_Thank you so much for all the reviews so far, I've been overwhelmed by the response for this fic!_

_The final chapter's just being beta-ed, should be up tomorrow._


	4. Chapter 4

**Next Summer**

_Castle fic, set a year after the events of A Deadly Game, in which I attempt to right a few wrongs. It's been in progress for a while, so it doesn't fit with what we now know to be canon, but I'm hoping you'll enjoy it still._

_Reviews always much appreciated!_

"You're really staying?" he asks a while later, his eyes lighting up like a little child, laughter creeping into his voice.

"I've told you more than once." She smiles, "I'm not going to change my mind."

His mouth hangs open a little as she turns back to the coffee machine.

The next thing she knows, arms are snaking around her, wrapping around her middle, and he's kissing the spot on her neck that since he discovered the previous night, he's been hardly able to keep his hands off.

She wants to brush him off with a witty comment and leave him hanging there, but he _smells _so good, and he feels so solid against her back that she leans into him, resting her head back on his shoulder, closing her eyes for a moment.

"There's no chance of me letting you escape now, anyway." He whispers, his words tickling her skin, eliciting a low giggle, "This place has security systems a Swiss bank would be proud of…"

Her hands wrap over his, where they're joined so tightly at the join of her sweatpants and that tantalising centimetre of bare, brown skin.

"Castle." She whispers, turning her head to kiss him and bumping noses instead, making him laugh this time. "I'm staying here, with you."

"That's really good news." He murmurs, before turning her deftly in his arms, hardly allowing her space to breathe, and fixing his lips to hers without an ounce of hesitation.

"That might not stay PG, you know." Martha whispers, surprising Alexis from where she's been standing in the doorway, having stepped in to make herself a sandwich, and seen her father and Kate Beckett all wrapped up in one another by one of the marble kitchen counters.

Alexis wrinkles her nose slightly at the thought of _that, _and turns to her grandmother, a wide smile on her face.

"I haven't been missing something big, have I? _This-_" she nods in the direction of her father and the detective, "-is a new thing?"

Martha nods, smiling herself as she watches her son pull away from Beckett and rest his forehead against hers, sharing a smile with her quite different to one she'd ever seen on his face. "Not for your father's lack of trying though…"

Alexis laughs slightly, "That's what this weekend was about, wasn't it?"

Martha shrugs. "He'd never tell us – or Detective Beckett, for that matter – if it was… but I know my son, and you know your father…"

Richard Castle's daughter turns to stare at him for a moment before speaking. "He looks so happy." She says, grinning. "Time to surprise him."

"You are so busted, Dad." She says loudly, walking out from the concealed doorway into the kitchen, a massive smile on her face, laughing out loud as her father and Beckett spring apart like teenagers. "Caught in the act."

The next sound anyone makes is Kate's laughter, watching Castle screw up his face, closing his eyes, and then peeking through one slit in the direction of his daughter.

"It's… it's not what it looks like?" he attempts, making Alexis smile.

"I hope it's exactly what it looks like." Martha says, stepping into the kitchen, "This woman's been waiting for you to man up for a while, Richard…"

Alexis feels something catch in her stomach as she watches the look that passes between her father and Detective Beckett – that's a look she hasn't seen on his face in a long time.

"Alexis, I was going to tell you… this is… this is still new, and we were just…"

She laughs slightly, wrapping Kate in an impromptu hug, "I think it's great , Dad…" and the slight softening of his face, the grateful look in his eyes when he realises she's completely in earnest – Alexis Castle knows then that her father's more serious about Kate Beckett than he's ever been about any woman. Beckett, taken slightly aback by the hug but finding herself comfortable, almost sentimental with the youngest Castle's arms around her, finds herself tucked into Castle's side, his arm around her waist, fixing her to him. Instinctively, she leans her head against his shoulder, bringing a smile to all of their faces.

"I… uh… despite the influence those cocktails may have had, part of last night was me acting on Alexis' advice." She grins, giving the younger girl a pointed look. "We both decided it was finally time to start talking…"

_Among other things_, she thinks, but now is definitely not the time.

"As long as it's all right with you, Lex… I know you thought you were getting your father to yourself all summer… your dad's invited me to stay with you…"

"Are you kidding me? Dad hates sunbathing, and he never wants to take me shopping, and he's hopeless at helping me choose an outfit when he throws a party… Stay as long as you can stand him, please…"

Alexis hugs her again, without detaching her from Castle's side, and for a moment, sandwiched between the two Castles, Beckett feels a slight stinging in her eyes – for the first time since her mother died, in those moments, she feels like she's part of a family.

She blinks furiously, but not before Castle notices, and squeezes her hand in his.

Alexis puts a hand on her hip, looking her father in the eye in a way that is scarily Beckett-like. "Kate tells me you brought _Gina _out here last year, Dad…" she cocks her head to one side, her tone accusatory. Castle looks between his daughter and the woman on his arm who, despite the sudden conversation change, is still smiling up at him.

"Can we call it a momentary lapse in judgement?" his fingers thread through Beckett's, "She went home after a week and a half, I was trying to make a point… to myself more than anyone, and it just wasn't the right way to do it…"

"And I should have told you about Tom and I long before yesterday, we could have cleared this up a long time ago…"

Martha smiles between the two of them, who in that moment seem only to have eyes for one another. "Maybe you needed the year to cool off, both of you… to sort out in your own heads what you really wanted…"

_There's some sense in that, _Castle thinks, realising again with incredulity that he's standing in the kitchen of his Hamptons house with his mother and his daughter and his arms around Kate Beckett – and no one's threatened to remove any of his limbs yet.

Alexis frowns. "Wasn't that you two were supposed to be together just glaringly obvious?"

* * *

Lanie's mouth hangs open and she appears unresponsive for a moment after Beckett tells her. The silence that follows makes her friend laugh.

"Lanie. I was expecting a bit more of a response than this."

The medical examiner blinks, the incredulous expression still all over her face. "Sorry, girl, but I was beginning to give up hope that you and Castle would ever wake up and smell the roses, so to speak… I guess I was beginning to figure that last summer you both had the opportunity and it kinda… passed you both by… I was beginning to think that was it… hell, I had my 'Kate, it's time to move on from Castle' speech prepared…"

"I was thinking the same thing… until last night…"

"Let me get one thing straight… you – Kate Beckett – _drunkenly seduced _Richard Castle… who you have not only been pining after for nearly three years now, but have been practically ignoring for the last nine months because he took his ex-wife to the Hamptons when you broke up with you boyfriend for him."

Beckett takes a deep breath. "Yes."

Lanie's jaw drops again, followed by the two of them bursting into laughter.

"Tell me everything." Lanie says, folding her arms and leaning back on the sunbed with relish, "Is writer boy as good as we're all led to believe?"

* * *

Esposito and Ryan won't stop making inappropriate comments and rude gestures right until the moment they pile back into the cars to leave for the city. Beckett rolls her eyes good-naturedly and smiles at the two of them like they're toddlers learning how to blow raspberries, and Castle laughs along with them. Jenny gives them both a hug, thanking them for their hospitality, and Lanie demands credit for Castle and Beckett's reconciliation – she did, after all, pick out those shoes. Montgomery shakes hands with Castle, maybe a little firmly, and gives Beckett a hug, levelling his gaze with hers and saying quietly, "don't let it interfere with work and I won't even have to notice it's going on."

As the cars drive away they stand on the strip, holding hands, Beckett lightly resting her head on Castle's shoulder.

As they turn out of sight, he looks down at her. "I can't quite believe you stayed." He smiles, kissing her temple as they turn to walk back to the house.

"Me either." Beckett laughs, and he nudges her in the other direction slightly with his hip, making her smile. She's twirling a strand of hair round her finger again and Castle's struck once again by the sudden stroke of good fortune that seems to have hijacked his weekend.

"So… tell the truth, Mr Castle, was this what this whole weekend was about, winning me back?"

"For that, Detective Beckett, I'd have had to have had you in the first place…"

Her eyes meet his, suddenly deadly serious. "Oh, you had me." She whispers; remembering suddenly the clenching in the pit of her stomach as she'd watched Castle step into the elevator with Gina, step out of her reach.

There's a silence for a moment as they walk slowly, joined hands swinging between them.

"Do we need to talk about last summer?" he asks slowly, slinging his arm around her shoulders as she wraps hers around his waist. "Because you have no idea how sorry I've been, that I took Gina, that I didn't listen to what you had to say, I just… when I got back it all seemed like it was too late."

She leans into him, biting her lip slightly nervously. "I should have called you back, I should have told you about Demming…" she breaks off, "Jesus, Castle, we've wasted a hell of a lot of time."

He presses a kiss to the top of her head, noting the cherry smell, bringing a slight smile to his face.

"But…" she continues, "I don't think there's any sense in rehashing last summer until we're ready to scream … it's in the past now… we just…" she looks at him shyly, "Don't waste any more time?"

"I definitely second that, Detective." He grins, taking her hand again as they walk up the steps to the front door. "Now, Mother's gone back to the city and Alexis is staying with friends… why don't we see if we can get to not wasting any more of that time?"

He fumbles with the key in the lock, finding every inch of her pressed against him, her lips on his throat, across his jawline, reaching his mouth with a hunger he finds himself unsurprised they both possess.

"I love you." He whispers in her ear as he closes the door behind them, pulling her through towards the bedrooms, her hands working feverishly on his shirt buttons.

"I love you too." She reciprocates in complete sobriety, her heart thumping and her pulse racing, and as she says it, clear as anything, the midday sun streaming through the window, not a single Piña Colada to cloud her judgement, she realises not only how true it is but how comfortable she is with that truth, to suddenly be the woman this man loves, to suddenly be part of this family.

For the first time, as she lands among the pillows on Castle's bed, as she finds his hands reverently lifting her vest over her head, his eyes dark, she wonders whether they needed this miserable year apart to validate everything between them, whether it only made them stronger. For the first time, she's grateful for last summer.

_Thank you so much for all your kind reviews, my first foray into the Castle fandom has been amazing! Look out for more to come, and I hope you've enjoyed the final installment._


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